Sociologist Mark Regnerus suggested that the sexual morality of many churchgoing Christians ‘shifted years ago.’

AUSTIN, Texas — Churchgoing Christians who support “gay marriage” are more likely to approve of commitment-free sexual relations, pornography, adultery, polyamory and abortion than other churchgoers, says one researcher who calls the differences a “massive divide.”

“At a glance, there is a pretty obvious fissure between Christians who do and do not oppose same-sex marriage,” University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus wrote in an Aug. 11 essay at the Public Discourse.

“More than seven times as many of the latter think pornography is okay. Three times as many back cohabiting as a good idea, six times as many are okay with no-strings-attached sex, five times as many think adultery could be permissible, thirteen times as many have no issue with polyamorous relationships, and six times as many support abortion rights.”

Regnerus suggested that the sexual morality of many churchgoing Christians “shifted years ago,” and their acceptance of same-sex marriage “follows significant change rather than prompts it.”

At the same time, he suggested that Christian approval of homosexual relationships “has ramifications for how heterosexual relationships are understood, too.”

Regnerus drew his data from the “Relationships in America” survey he oversaw as a senior fellow at the University of Texas’ Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture. The survey interviewed 15,738 Americans aged 18-60 in early 2014 using methods intended to generate nationally representative results.

Regnerus examined the survey responses of self-identified Christians who say they attend church at least three times a month and who reported a position on “gay marriage.” He also examined the responses of self-identified gay and lesbian Christians and self-identified gay and lesbian non-Christians.

His analysis focused on respondents’ views of sexual morality and abortion rights.

Only 5% of churchgoing Christians opposed to “gay marriage” said commitment-free sex is okay, compared to 33% of pro-“gay marriage” churchgoers, 49% of same-sex attracted Christians and 81% of homosexual non-Christians.

Regnerus’ analysis found great differences on the morality of pornography. About 5% of churchgoing Christians opposed to “gay marriage” said that viewing pornography is okay, compared to 33% of churchgoing “gay marriage” supporters, 57% of homosexual Christians and 78% of same-sex attracted non-Christians.

Churchgoers who support “gay marriage” were more likely to approve of marital infidelity, with 7% saying it is sometimes okay, compared to 1% of churchgoers who did not support “gay marriage.” About 14% of same-sex attracted Christians said marital infidelity is sometimes okay, as did 26% of non-Christian homosexual persons.

Churchgoing Christians who support “gay marriage” were also more likely to support polyamory than were Christians who do not support redefined marriage. Only 1% of Christians opposed to “gay marriage” supported polyamory, compared to 16% of those who support “gay marriage,” 32% of homosexual Christians and 58% of non-Christians who are same-sex attracted.

While polyamory has long been a fringe phenomenon, it has gained some prominent supporters. President Barack Obama’s 2009 nominee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, former Georgetown University Law Center professor Chai Feldblum, disavowed her previously stated support for the 2006 manifesto “Beyond Same-sex Marriage,” which included support for households with “more than one conjugal partner.”

Christians opposed to “gay marriage” showed greater support for the idea that married couples with children should stay together.

They also showed the strongest opposition to abortion, with only 6% voicing a pro-abortion-rights position. By comparison, 39% of Christian “gay marriage” backers supported abortion rights, as did 58% of homosexual Christians and 72% of same-sex attracted non-Christians.

Regnerus denied that his analysis supports a “slippery slope” argument, in which accepting one change in attitude must prompt changes in other areas. Rather, he suggested, Americans are engaged in “social learning” from people they see as “a standard of comparison for ourselves.”

Churchgoers opposed to “gay marriage” feel out of step from the rest of the nation, while Christians who support it may still “sense that their own views on sexuality still lag behind those gay and lesbian Christians from whom they have become convinced of the legitimacy of same-sex marriage,” he said.

For their part, Regnerus said, same-sex attracted Christians are “not as permissive” as those who are non-Christians, but are “still well above the national average in permissiveness.”

Comments

The most important aspect of God’s love is its unselfishness. You cannot be on the side of unselfishness if you do not seriously consider the effect of your behavior on the most vulnerable members of any society, its children. Anytime you decide to act sexually without including the consequence of the sexual act, that is the procreation of children, you put your mark on what you consider is important about this problem. Every act of an adult reinforces his beliefs about children. If you decide to have sex without the benefit of marriage or use a contraceptive device in order to ,have the sexual pleasure with out the child, that selfish act has a impact on how society looks at marriage and how it educates their youth in society about sex and procreation. You cannot have it both ways no matter how you look at the matter.

Posted by Theresa H on Saturday, Aug 23, 2014 10:08 AM (EDT):

Seems to me it would be good if this article and the posts were closed with this last Comment of Sr. S. about the “sensus fidelium.” Enough has been posted here and Stephen is “set” in his ways.

Posted by Sister S on Thursday, Aug 21, 2014 2:43 PM (EDT):

A little survey, some quick results, a quick conclusion is not the sensus fidelium.

The sensus fidelium can’t be equated with poll results now. A better way to think of the sensus fidelium is in terms of what Catholics have always and everywhere believed, even when this belief had yet to be defined by a council or a pope. Like the Trinity for instance. It was held by Christians, before it was defined as official.

Determining the sensus fidelium, on how something has been received is not as easy as polls.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 11:29 PM (EDT):

Tom in AZ,

It seems like we are seeing the revival of the age old gnosticism, that holds we are ghosts in machines, rather than body persons to push homosexualist/feminist gender ideology, that now sees sexual difference itself as the enemy.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 11:02 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

There are several flaws in the commission’s reasoning.

The Manichess held that procreation was more evil than sex, because it trapped souls in bodies, which were like prisons, since only the soul was the real persons, so if one must have sex let it be without procreation which imprisoned a soul in flesh.

Catholicism holds that we are body and soul in one unity, not ghosts in machines.

Artificial contraceptions is a lot more Manichean, since it falsifies the language of the body.

And modern forms of NFP are not complex.

And sense of the faithful in the global South would be a lot more different from that in the rapidly shrinking West, that was ravaged by the sexual revolution.

The refusal now to accept the complementarity of Christian marriage as found in scripture has been a long process of re-engineering which began with artificial contraception.

You claim that complementarity has no basis in scripture, but have YET to prove this. We have proven that it does.

Pope Francis does not link disordered inclinations to mental illness, you do. We all have disordered inclinations. And the Catechism calls all lust as disordered.

Pope Francis is talking about not judging the state of someone’s soul, but he has repeatedly affirmed church teachings on human sexuality and marriage.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 5:43 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

“Order them to accept celibacy or face condemnation and exclusion from communion and the sacraments and employment. And their children ... who cares!”

Children can be raised in the faith and can receive the sacraments. Their parents cannot be married. They are the same as single people in the church. And nobody has the right to the sacraments, regardless of orientation. Sacraments are not a civil right.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 5:34 PM (EDT):

“That same situation often is the case for an opposite-sex married couple who adopt and nurture. Neither couple can be said to contravene the law of nature by marrying”

You just don’t seem to get this do you?

The opposite sex couple ALREADY mutually consents to the threefold goods of marriage. A same-sex couple cannot consent to it.

You also have not addressed complementarity in Christian marriage in Ephesians 5

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 5:09 PM (EDT):

Mutual Consent to the threefold goods of marriage are presumed in a Christian marriage. If Two Catholics or two baptized persons get married outside the church, but do it with the intention of it being permanent, exclusive, and open to life. Such, a marriage is valid in the eyes of the church.

The couple simply has to seek a dispensation from the church, for witness purposes.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 4:28 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

“In 1563, the Council of Trent abrogated conscience and opened the door for clerical imposition of punitive rules that cause harm.”

Are you saying a sacramental marriage harms heterosexuals? Trent did not have homosexuals in mind.

Anybody who disagrees with the church on marriage, does not have to be married in the church or even be Catholic.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 4:00 PM (EDT):

Pope Francis on Marriage.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman.” Interview with Corriere della Sera (March 5, 2014)

“From the beginning the Creator blessed man and woman so that they might be fruitful and multiply, and so the family then is an image of the Triune God in the world.” Address to the Extraordinary Consistory (February 20, 2014)

“The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith to their children. Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will.” Evangelii Gaudium, no 66 (Nov 24, 2013)

“The second point: the family is founded on marriage. Through their free and faithful act of love, Christian spouses testify to the fact that marriage, insofar as it is a sacrament, is the foundation of the family and strengthens spousal union and the couple’s mutual gift of self.” Address to the Pontifical Council for the Family (Oct 25, 2013)

“The first setting in which faith enlightens the human city is the family. I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, where by spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom and loving plan.”

Lumen Fidei, no 52 (June 29, 2013)

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 3:52 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

From my perspective, You’re the one using scripture out of context and do not understand natural law or get Augustine or Trent right.

You have given me no original sources for your arguments, just what you “think” they say.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 3:36 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

Pope Francis on Marriage

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. … That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh”. “The image of God is a married couple, man and woman, not only man, not only woman, but rather both. This is the image of God: love, God’s alliance with us is represented in the alliance between man and woman”, he said.

“On a positive note, we must reaffirm the right of children to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”

And you do not even get St. Augustine right.

The 3 goods of marriage are children, fidelity and a permanent exclusive relationship.

Marriage, he says: Now this is threefold, faithfulness, offspring, and the Sacrament. For faithfulness, it is observed, that there be no lying with other man or woman, out of the bond of wedlock: for the offspring, that it be lovingly welcomed, kindly nourished, religiously brought up: for the Sacrament, that marriage be not severed, and that man or woman divorced be not joined to another even for the sake of offspring.

You don’t want to accept that sex is reversed for a married man and a woman.

A heterosexual couple for instance that co-habits without a marriage also cannot promote their views if they are employed by a parish ministry and are asked to abstain from receiving the Eucharist too.

This is emotional blackmail to force a religion to accept your way of life and then accuse them of being cruel of not doing so.

Here is what Pope Paul’s Humanae Vitae commission had to say about “procreative intent.”

The majority of Pope Paul’s papal commission pointed out that the encyclical’s arguments based upon natural law are not convincing; that it’s concept of what is natural is naïve, static, narrow and completely unhistorical, and that it dissects man in the light of an abstract conception of his nature; that the restrictions of the concept of nature and natural law to the physical and biological sphere is a regression to long obsolete Aristotelian-Stoic-medieval ideas; that the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ is arbitrary. The fact that abuse of a method is possible does not make its reasonable use illegitimate. The rhythm method, with its complicated system of taking temperatures and following a calendar, is anything but natural. The artificiality of a method is no argument against its permissibility (the Pope declared heart transplants to be permissible) and unconditioned respect for nature results in a numinization of it that conflicts with the modern view of human responsibility; reducing personal life to a biological process and overlooking the vital difference between animal and human and responsible sexuality. Moreover, technical methods of birth control are essential in view of the human situation as a whole (in particular the world’s enormous population). The document moralizes about this situation, but fails to appreciate it properly and plays it down; the attitude to sexuality is still marked by the latent influence of the unchristian Manichaean heritage, and the whole document and its language displays a complete lack of concrete experience, and so on.

Pope Paul was persuaded by a small group of curial advisors to ignore the Commission of experts and not put it to a vote of the Vatican II Synod. He said, “What weighs more heavily, however, is that this change [in the Church’s teaching on birth control three Popes deep at that time] would involve a heavy blow to the doctrine of assistance the Holy Spirit promises to the Church to lead the faithful on the right way toward their salvation ... For the Church to have erred so gravely in its grave responsibility of leading souls would be tantamount too seriously suggesting that the assistance of the Holy Spirit was lacking to her.” He was shocked by the pushback received from theologians and the vast majority of Catholics and never issued another Encyclical.

Here is what Pope Paul’s Humanae Vitae commission had to say about “procreative intent.”

The majority of Pope Paul’s papal commission pointed out that the encyclical’s arguments based upon natural law are not convincing; that it’s concept of what is natural is naïve, static, narrow and completely unhistorical, and that it dissects man in the light of an abstract conception of his nature; that the restrictions of the concept of nature and natural law to the physical and biological sphere is a regression to long obsolete Aristotelian-Stoic-medieval ideas; that the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ is arbitrary. The fact that abuse of a method is possible does not make its reasonable use illegitimate. The rhythm method, with its complicated system of taking temperatures and following a calendar, is anything but natural. The artificiality of a method is no argument against its permissibility (the Pope declared heart transplants to be permissible) and unconditioned respect for nature results in a numinization of it that conflicts with the modern view of human responsibility; reducing personal life to a biological process and overlooking the vital difference between animal and human and responsible sexuality. Moreover, technical methods of birth control are essential in view of the human situation as a whole (in particular the world’s enormous population). The document moralizes about this situation, but fails to appreciate it properly and plays it down; the attitude to sexuality is still marked by the latent influence of the unchristian Manichaean heritage, and the whole document and its language displays a complete lack of concrete experience, and so on.

The principle of subsidiarity and religious freedom of conscience is firmly established in Catholic teaching as defined by Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae). The repudiation of religious coercion based on universal human dignity is a welcome development that is solidly grounded in the Church’s social tradition.\\“The church, therefore, faithful to the truth of the Gospel, follows in the path of Christ and the apostles when it recognizes the principle that religious liberty is in keeping with human dignity and divine revelation and gives it its support. Through the ages it has preserved and handed on the doctrine which it has received from its Master and the apostles. Although, through the vicissitudes of human history, there have at times appeared patterns of behavior which was not in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel and were even opposed to it, it has always remained the teaching of the church that no one is to be coerced into believing.” ` Dignitatis Humanae.

It is up to us as Catholics to present a plausible and attractive type of Catholicism and social practices based on it. To be clear, for a Catholic, the criterion for evaluating a solution to any human conundrum is not to ascertain if that solution conforms to Aristotelian logic nor a moral solution because it is the position of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Our criterion, as Catholics, is the human person. Indeed, as Pope Benedict XVI indicated in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, we need to move beyond this binary way of analyzing human affairs.

Our Catholic criterion is the acknowledgement that ideas have a reality to them as well, and that this reality must be deeply personal or it runs the risk of becoming an ideology. By placing the human person at the center of analysis, rather than abstract laws or ideals, we keep ourselves honest. There is a reason that ideology is usually used as a pejorative.

This brings me to the confluence of Natural Law and the Sensu Fidei. I would suggest that the Sensus Fidei comes from the Natural Law as it manifests itself in the experience of the faithful. People will respond positively to a teaching which they find fits their own sense of right and wrong and negatively to one that does not. One of the ways that defenders of the current teachings use to preserve their position is to end the discussion by taking comfort in saying that, nevertheless, the Pope has the final say. Of course, that statement negates the rest of this teaching and returns us to the status quo. I find it hard to believe that any pope can claim that he alone, or with the magisterium, receives the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I believe that in my life I have personally been guided by the Spirit (or I’m smarter than I think I am).

The Sesus Fidei is not about how one person responds to a teaching, but is evidence of the movement of the Spirit in the whole of the community of faith. My experience is that the community is made up of a very high percentage of good people trying to live good lives and that it is a fertile ground in which the Spirit can work. For this reason, a teaching that is not received by the faithful cannot be claimed to be “definitive”, etc, but must be opened for discussion to learn the reasons it was not received and that can lead to a teaching that the faithful will receive.

Prior to Vatican I, infallibility in principle used to be granted to the teaching office, and errors were regarded as exceptions. In spite of all the efforts of the extreme ultramontanists, that position could not be maintained at Vatican II. Later the position was adopted that the teaching office was fallible in principle, except in the case of certain infallible propositions. This position turned out to be untenable too.

The classic Catholic example is to consider a Pope who excommunicates a majority of the Church to be a heretic, because he has failed in his duty to maintain the unity of the Church. God acts upon the Church through the Holy Spirit. Faith is not dependent upon infallible propositions.

@ Tom ... oh ... I see ... you reduce sex to an approved biological function (for what purpose?) ... and you called me a utilitarian ... and can not answer the natural law questions ... and ignore the question of pastoral ... and tell people who do not agree with you that they are ignorant ... things that make you go hmmm ... and please, no Ad Hominem attacks.

So, your argument is complementarity” ... that flawed natural law rationalization that lacks primary reference to scripture. By contrast, Pope Francis said that he will not “judge” gays and lesbians, including gay priests, signaling a shift from his predecessor and offering another sign that the new pope is committed to changing the church’s approach to historically marginalized groups. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

This distinction of calling a whole subset of the human community intrinsically disordered in their very natures because of their inclination to do disordered acts is reserved exclusively for those who are gay. And it seems clear to me that when Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) first introduced this language in his 1986 letter to the bishops of the church on the “pastoral” care of those who are gay, he stated that not merely the acts that gay people do, but gay people themselves, are disordered precisely because he wanted to link homosexuality to mental disorder.

I’m pretty sure that the 1986 document chooses its language about objective disorder carefully to keep alive the suspicion or flat assertion that those who are gay suffer from a disordered “inclination,” as a reaction to the monumental shift in the way in which psychological and medical professional associations were coming to view homosexuality in the period leading up to the 1986 document.

The magisterial language of disorder regarding those who are gay keeps alive the suspicion that gay people are defective human beings — that they are mentally ill human beings incapable of rationality. It’s designed to give aid and comfort to those who choose to inform their fellow human beings who happen to be born gay that they are insane and irrational. Much like the natural law rationalizations that supported the institution of slavery and rationalized inferiority. Such a perspective encourages doctrinal fundamentalism, which, is just as Christ-denying and soul-destroying as biblical fundamentalism.

“When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency [to homosexuality] is not the problem ... they’re our brothers.”

“Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason.”

Francis says the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” insisting that “the doors of the sacraments” must not “be closed for simply any reason.”

Francis criticizes forces within the church who seem to lust for “veritable witch hunts,” asking rhetorically, “Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?”

He calls for collaborative leadership, saying bishops and pastors must use “the means of participation proposed in the Code of Canon Law and other forms of pastoral dialogue, out of a desire to listen to everyone and not simply to those who would tell him what he would like to hear.”

“The Church is not the Church only for good people ... You can’t pick and choose: the Church is for everyone, beginning with those I’ve already mentioned, the most marginalized. It is everyone’s Church!”

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently … “

“If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal “security,” those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists — they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life.”

Posted by Tom in AZ on Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 10:42 AM (EDT):

@Stephen DeVol: Where did I say a word about “procreative intent”? I said it’s NOT SEX; what anyone “intends” is irrelevant, because those organs are part of the digestive tract, not sex-organs at all, in the first place. I’m sorry if you believe masturbation into the colon or the mouth is sex; it isn’t, though. Call what same-sex pairings can do “mating”, in the context of any other animal, and the biologists will pat you condescendingly on the head and ask you gently if you’re maybe looking for the English department. And, again, ALL marriage is, is “mated pair” as reflected in the life of a sapient species.
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You are both grievously misinformed and astonishingly disingenuous—a combination fatal to rational discourse. The day you can spell “hominem” correctly is the day you get to condescend to me; till then, your time would be better spent on remedial literacy and studying the basics of moral theology (a subject of which you are demonstrably as ignorant as the average burrowing owl).

Tom in AZ ... There we have it ... finally ... after much mental masturbation ... you claim the “evil” in homosexual marriage is a lack of “procreative intent”… that twentieth century doctrinal innovation that has not been received by a vast majority of the faithful. Let’s explore that thought a bit more.

Augustine reasoned that the mandate to increase and multiply had been replaced by a concession: allowing couples to have intercourse without the mandate to procreate. Indeed, St. Paul had proposed a remedy that “it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9).

Augustine saw that marriage offered three important social benefits—fidelity, offspring and a sacred union. By fidelity, he meant the commitment to have sex only with one’s spouse; by offspring, having and raising children; and by a sacred union, a bond signifying the indissoluble union between Christ and the church described in the Letter to the Ephesians (5:31-32).

Augustine’s thinking about marriage gradually changed. The importance of offspring, so prominent a reason for marriage, gradually receded in his mind, for his pastoral life brought him face to face with countless childless marriages he considered true marriages.

Thus, for some 1,600 years, what made a marriage a true marriage was consent, from which its three benefits—fidelity, children and sacred union—flowed. Whether a couple could have children was, like sexual attraction, nature’s call—not what makes marriage marriage. Although same-sex couples can have a child by adoption and nurture the child in a home characterized by mutual affection and respect, they cannot beget a child of their own. That same situation often is the case for an opposite-sex married couple who adopt and nurture. Neither couple can be said to contravene the law of nature by marrying.

RE: “...all the research also says that children raised by homosexual men are more likely to engage in promiscuity.” What studies? Then tell me how you provide care for their children in your parish?

“... Most gay couples do not adopt, but patronize the surrogacy and IVF industries.” ... which you conclude is human trafficking? Please tell me more about how you arrived at that conclusion?

Please cite your sources. You are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to be wrong in your facts. And please, no more Vorhees or Regenerus pseudo-science.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Tuesday, Aug 19, 2014 5:51 PM (EDT):

@Stephen DeVol: The first principle of natural law is “good is to be done and sought after, and evil to be avoided”; “harm” is not identical with “evil”, though it is accidentally a privation. You appear to have confused “natural law” with the Hippocratic Oath, if not with Jainist ahimsa (“non-harming”).
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The natural law question, therefore, is actually, “Why is it good that we pretend digestive-tract masturbation is identical to lifelong monogamous pair-bond?” The only good of which digestive tract masturbation is capable is mere fleshly pleasure, and perhaps the emotional wellbeing of those that pursue it. There are other goods intrinsically served by the lifelong monogamous bond of a mated pair, which in the rational animal is called “marriage—goods not served by the two-member masturbation club whose members are the same sex.
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Indeed, homosexual couplings cannot obtain the major good of marriage—the begetting and rearing of children—without gross offenses against the natural law, involving third parties not bound by any permanent relationship to the couple, and the abandonment of children by their natural parents. Most gay couples do not adopt, but patronize the surrogacy and IVF industries—which intrinsically involves the trafficking in persons, which even pagan Rome agreed was not a component of natural law (because nobody would CHOOSE slavery for himself); even when lesbians use IVF, they deny parental rights to the child’s father.
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As for when homosexuals adopt…all the research says children need a parent of each sex, to have healthy relationships with both sexes. All the research also says that children raised by homosexual men are more likely to engage in promiscuity; it may have been hushed up by Comrade Lysenko but it’s still out there. Finally? The rates of domestic abuse among lesbian couples are among the highest of any demographic. You think that’ll never involve children?

Sr. S. Again ... I have no problem with any couple that desires to have a celibate relationship. What you choose to ignore is that most gay Catholics desire civil union and many have children.

You continue to argue that the new natural law rationalization is adequate ... without evidence of pastoral efficacy and firm scriptural support. You also act like this has always been the teaching of the Church. The first law of “natural law reasoning” is to do no harm. Asked how does homosexual civil union harm the individual, others or society? ... and you quote Scripture out of context to claim “accept coerced celibacy or condemnation and exclusion from communion and employment” is a universal normative value ... and are speechless when pressed to answer the “natural law” question.

What made marriage sacred during the first sixteen hundred years of Church history was mutual consent to share a life in Christ. The benefits of consent are: fidelity, children and social stability. St. Augustine first defined these principles. In 1563, the Council of Trent abrogated conscience and opened the door for clerical imposition of punitive rules that cause harm. This period in history was marked by the Protestant Reformation and culminated in the 1868 Vatican I definition of papal infallibility (based upon forged documents and no basis in scripture) during a period of democratic secularization of governments in Europe and USA and the loss of papal states. Democratic governments – i.e., the people - were reacting to a long and sad history of clerical impositions and abuses. Pope Francis says that “clericalism” is the greatest evil within the Church today.

Posted by Theresa H on Tuesday, Aug 19, 2014 12:02 PM (EDT):

One other thing about the findings of this study….It should be no surprise that someone who accepts/approves of “same-sex” marriage, e.g., would also “accept/approve” other aberrations of the Ten Commandments. In other words: to endorse one aberration of God’s word puts us on a “course” called: “the slippery slope.”

Posted by Theresa H on Tuesday, Aug 19, 2014 11:45 AM (EDT):

The signification of the word “marriage” is the exclusive relationship between a man and a woman for the propagation of the human race. To use this word for the homosexual relationship would be to introduce a contradiction in the term regarding its inherent meaning since the beginning of the human race. No doubt about it, ever since the Fall, homosexual relationships have occurred, but to change the meaning of the word: “marriage” would DENY the Natural Law, the Ten Commandments, and the Word of Our Lord Jesus Christ and St. Paul’s elucidation of the same. Find another “name” (like “Same-Sex-Union”—or whatever) and get it recognized in civil law. Why must some people insist on changing the unique meaning of the word “marriage”???

Posted by Sister S on Tuesday, Aug 19, 2014 10:22 AM (EDT):

Stephen,

To answer your question, It’s possible for celibate gay couples to be in a relationship and have civil contract that includes sharing property, healthcare etc.

This might seem strange for our culture, but it’s not for the church.

The rite of Christian friendship should be explored as a vocation in the church.

I do not suggest getting rid of any existing children.

Why not have a rite of Christian friendship in the church and bless it.

Just leave sacramental marriage alone.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 10:45 PM (EDT):

Stephen DeVol said,

The study you cite simply says that hormonal contraceptives may have emotional side-effects in a small sample of the population. You get the same warning with many medications… It is quite a stretch to conclude that the use of contraceptives leads to lowered levels of commitment that are related to an increased rate of divorce.

The use of contraceptives dramatically alters the expected results of a relationship. Are you really suggesting that it’s more of a stretch to find that this change in what one expects marriage to involve affects one’s level of commitment to the endeavor, which then makes it easier to walk away from it, than to think that it’s a change in chemistry brought on by “the pill” itself that makes one more likely to divorce? Really?!

It is an even further stretch to say that childless couples marriages end in divorce.

Many couples who end up not being able to bear children make precisely the same commitment that my wife and I did when we got married. Essentially you’re saying that it’s a stretch to suggest that infertile couples cannot know the future.

Posted by Sister S on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 10:10 PM (EDT):

“The Trent marriage revisions were most definitely about Church power to decide and resulted in the abrogation of conscience in marriage ... opening the door for clerical imposition of laws that lack in the virtue of prudence. “

This is your subjective opinion Stephen. In marriage vows, a couple consents to be faithful, and open to life. Are you saying they are being forced against their conscience to do this?

Christian marriage was never about whatever two people want it to be. This is the new legal definition of marriage.

@ Tom in AZ ... I think it is you who does not understand what “natural law” is. The first principle of natural law is to do no harm. You have yet to answer the natural law question. How does homosexual civil union cause harm to the individual, others or society. Then make a positive link to Scripture. Then explain how you provide pastoral care and evaluate how is that working. I really have to work hard not to laugh when you accuse me of utilitarianism ... “procreative intent” has reduced human sexual relationship to a biological function.

@ John Mainhart ... gay Catholics believe in the virtue of chastity ... most reject coerced celibacy. There is a difference.

Sister S. ... you are wasting your time trying to make a distinction between sacramental marriage and gay civil union. The latter is a fait accompli. The question is: how do you care for gay Catholics and their children? You do not seem to have an answer.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 5:58 PM (EDT):

@Stephen DeVol: Since you demonstrably do not know what “natural law” means—which, in a discussion of Catholic moral theology, is like debating general relativity without ever having heard of a Riemann manifold—you are essentially not qualified to offer opinions on the topic. You argue, again, from utilitarianism—which is absolutely anathema to ANYONE who claims to be a Catholic. Has your network been sued for false advertising yet?
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Also? It’s “ad hominem”, “to the person”, not “ad homonym”, which would mean “to the word that’s spelled the same but means something different”.

Posted by John Mainhart on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 2:45 PM (EDT):

This is not a bit surprising because the issue is not same sex marriage but Chastity. The most beautiful present our Savior gave us is Sex when it is connected with Love. He also gave us responsibilities with Chastity that in general we refuse to accept whenever they appear. Love always includes sacrifice, no matter under what conditions are involved when it occurs. We don’t want to deny ourselves sex when we have not taken the necessary steps prescribed by God to use it in a loving way. we don’t want to deny ourselves when our partner is not able to also have full enjoyment. We don’t even want to deny ourselves if we are not sexually appropriate, if our partner is seriously inhibited fro9m the free exercise of love we sometimes insist on finding another partner. We will never solve this problem till we are willing to be Chaste when God wants us to be Chaste. Only then will we be able to understand same sex Chastity. That includes Priests etc.

Pope Francis says the greatest temptation of the church is to clericalism. He believes that “the phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the laity.”

Posted by Sister S on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 2:30 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

Love does not seek to destroy sacramental marriage, because one cannot fit into it.

Sr. S. The Trent marriage revisions were most definitely about Church power to decide and resulted in the abrogation of conscience in marriage ... opening the door for clerical imposition of laws that lack in the virtue of prudence. More half-truths.

Kevin ... it is no surprise that you look to Catholic Answers for information. Michael Voris has been repeatedly caught manipulating scientific studies ... pseudo-science ... to justify his conservative agenda. The USCCB has on many occasions distanced itself from Vorhis.

The study you cite simply says that hormonal contraceptives may have emotional side-effects in a small sample of the population. You get the same warning with many medications. And, nonabortificant contraceptives are not limited to hormonal preparations. It is quite a stretch to conclude that the use of contraceptives leads to lowered levels of commitment that are related to an increased rate of divorce. It is an even further stretch to say that childless couples marriages end in divorce. Correlation does not imply causation and this study certainly does neither.

Again, you would impose coerced celibacy (live life without hope for marriage or face condemnation, exclusion from communion and employment) upon a subset of humanity ... a double standard. We are not talking about people who make a free choice. That begs the moral questions outlined above ... none of which you have answered with sufficient clarity to justify discrimination.

And let’s be clear ... discrimination causes harm. Homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social and vocational capabilities.

The American Psychological Association has adopted the following resolution concerning civil rights: “The APA deplores all public and private discrimination in such areas as employment, housing, public accommodation, and licensing against those who engage in or have engaged in homosexual activities and declares that no burden of proof of such judgement, capacity, or reliability shall be placed upon these individuals greater than that imposed on any other persons. Further, the American Psychological Association supports and urges the enactment of civil rights legislation at the local, and state and federal level that would offer citizens who engage in acts of homosexuality the same protections now guaranteed to others on the basis of race, creed, color, etc. Further, the American Psychological Association supports and urges the repeal of all discriminatory legislation singling out homosexual acts by consenting adults in private.”

Posted by Sister S on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 2:05 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

Nobody here denies that there are issues that need to be faced, we disagree that marriage needs to be changed to do this and so does Pope Francis.

St. Paul talked about unity in Christ, not cancelling out diversity.

Love seeks humility. You cannot force a church to accept you.

Let me give you an example.

The late Fr. Solanus Casey, wanted to be a priest and was convinced that he had a calling. He had a learning disability and was told he could not be a priest. He still persisted and was ordained a simplex priest, he was not allowed to hear confessions or preach in public. He was only permitted to do very few things.

Did he fight for his rights? Did he get mad and go on and on about how bad the church was and how they were picking on poor him?

No.

He accepted it was the will of God for him. He soon became the most famous priest in town, without preaching a single sermon!

God can use our anybody for his glory, but only when we humble ourselves and let him do so.

@ Theresa H ... there is nothing wrong with the single life for those called to this existence. For example, religious have this gift. Most people feel a call to committed relationship and family ... irrespective of sexual orientation. .

I agree with you that the Sensus Fidelium includes the magisterium, theologians and the laity. That is the essence of Vatican II reforms.

Your assumption is that the magisterium holds to present definitions of homosexuals and pastoral care. Pope Francis seems quite concerned about the state of pastoral care for gay people and their children. And from what I gather from National Bishops Conferences and dioceses ... many members of the hierarchy and a majority of lay Catholics have serious concerns about the way the Church and some people are treating gay Catholics.

To be clear, for a Catholic, the criterion for evaluating a solution to any human conundrum is not to ascertain if that solution conforms to Aristotelian logic nor a moral solution because it is the position of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Our criterion, as Catholics, is the human person. Indeed, as Pope Benedict XVI indicated in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, we need to move beyond this binary way of analyzing human affairs.

How do you care for gay Catholics and their children in your parish?

- How is that working for you?

- How is that working for them?

- What would Jesus Do?

Regarding you theory that what is needed is better catechesis ... for anyone familiar with the 1980 synod on the family, reading the new instrumentum laboris fosters a feeling of déjà vu.

Many of the same factors were blamed for marriage and family problems: “the mass media; the hedonistic culture; relativism; materialism; individualism; the growing secularism; the prevalence of ideas that lead to an excessive, selfish liberalization of morals; the fragility of interpersonal relationships; a culture which rejects making permanent choices ... ”

Granted the return of all these old topics in the new instrumentum laboris, one could conclude that the 1980 synod on the family was a failure, but it is not clear how this new synod will do any better.

@ Sister S ... please do not put words into my mouth. I did not say Courage is insignificant because they are a minority. I said I do not have a problem with a minority that wants a celibate life ... it is a gift from God guided by conscience. What you fail to acknowledge is that the vast majority of gay Catholics desire some form of civil union and many of them do have children. Again ... a half-truth.

The real issue is pastoral care.

How do you care for gay Catholics and their children in your parish?
_ How is that working for you?
_ How is that working for them?
- What would Jesus do?

St. Paul (Galatians 3:28) wrote of the Holy Spirit’s overcoming such dualistic divisions among humanity: master-slave, Jew-Greek, male-female

“Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action. To shut out the person and to refuse to consider him as a person, as an other self, we resort to the impersonal “law” and to abstract “nature.” That is to say we block off the reality of the other, we cut the intercommunication of our nature and his nature, and we consider only our own nature with its rights, its claims, it demands. And we justify the evil we do to our brother because he is no longer a brother, he is merely an adversary, an accused. To restore communication, to see our oneness of nature with him, and to respect his personal rights and his integrity, his worthiness of love, we have to see ourselves as similarly accused along with him ... and needing, with him, the ineffable gift of grace and mercy to be saved. Then, instead of pushing him down, trying to climb out by using his head as a stepping-stone for ourselves, we help ourselves to rise by helping him to rise. For when we extend our hand to the enemy who is sinking in the abyss, God reaches out to both of us, for it is He first of all who extends our hand to the enemy. It is He who “saves himself” in the enemy, who makes use of us to recover the lost groat which is His image in our enemy.” ~ Thomas Merton to Dorothy Day 1962

Posted by Sister S on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 10:43 AM (EDT):

“Those who attempt to use it as a cautionary tale to remain mired in the categories of Trent are wrong. Pope Francis is trying to reignite the collegial process begun by Vatican II. We can only hope that he will be successful.”

I am not the one who brought up Trent here. And it was about public weddings, not conscience. You’re the one with the half-truth here.

Pope Francis rejects BOTH clericalism and every man his own Pope. He is closer to Eastern Orthodox who share mostly share the same views on the sacraments, than the is to the “we are church” movement.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 10:41 AM (EDT):

Stephen DeVol said,

please provide some evidence that commitment is affected by orientation ... you allude to a scientific study ... can you cite the source?

I didn’t claim that commitment is affected by orientation. I said that lowered levels of commitment are related to an increased rate of divorce, and that same-sex couples cannot substantively make a commitment at the level that many married men and women do. As for a study that supports what I’m saying:

In the Royal College study, divorce also had in interesting and noteworthy interaction with OCPs [oral contraceptives]. The divorce rate of users was found to be double that of nonusers…

You do confuse celibacy with chastity. And heterosexual couples are not coerced ... celibacy it is a choice ... some would say a gift from God.

By “celibacy” I’m referring to “abstention from sexual intercourse,” which is a valid meaning of the term, so I’m not confused. And I would say that there are many single adults out there who don’t find celibacy to be a choice, whether they desire marriage or merely sex, regardless of whether they feel their life is fulfilled even if that desire isn’t.

a few dioceses are discriminating in employment ... and much harm has been done to real people

Though there have been some debatable ones, most of those cases involve people in positions of leadership or education, such as teachers or choir directors. It’s not unreasonable to expect that the public life of such persons shouldn’t blatantly conflict with Church teaching - i.e. they should be expected to set a reasonably good example of living the faith. Their firing is therefore not unjust, though even then a diocese should assist them in finding other employment.

Posted by Sister S on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 10:31 AM (EDT):

Stephen,

Jesus did not saying anything about cloning either. This is an argument from silence.

Jesus did say, that marriage was between a man and a woman, and this was God’s plan from the “beginning”

Matthew 19:3-4

“Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH ‘“

Jesus re-states this in Mark 10:6-7

St. Paul was talking about a male-femal marriage here. Not gay relationships. Once again an argument from silence.

Let’s take a look at Ephesians 5:31-32

31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and pthe two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

St. Paul also condemned homosexual relations in Romans 1. Some try to argue this away, by claiming he was talking about pagan prostitution, and not consensual relationships. This reasoning is faulty because homosexuality as an orientation or identity is a recent concept. He was not familiar with a gay couple. He was talking about those who engage in gay sex.

The Council of Trent introduced the concept of weddings. Before this Christians had marriages, but not public weddings. When a couple went to a church seeking an annulment, there was no way to know if a marriage had taken place, without the presence of witnesses. Hence trent made it necessary to have a witness present at the marriage.

You do not have a good understanding of the difference between marriage and weddings.

This has nothing to do with getting rid of conscience.

Posted by Theresa H on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 9:43 AM (EDT):

According to the theological exposition taken up by theologians under the directive of the Vatican: “Sensus Fidelium” exists where the whole Church: laity, priests, bishops, cardinals and pope are all of the “same mind” in a matter of faith and morals. Ultimately, you don’t have “sensus fidei” without the Pope and the Bishops in union with him! The “Catechism of the Catholic Church”—which is published by the Vatican—is the best exposition of the whole of the “Sensus Fidei” today. The US Bishops have also published a Catechism, but it accords with the Vatican Catechism.

Posted by Theresa H on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 1:57 AM (EDT):

Please keep in mind that the “Sensus Fidei” includes the magisterium! So if the Magisterium is disapproving of, e.g., same-sex “unions” (or whatever it would be called)—which it is, then there is no “Sensus Fidei”—even if (and that’s a big IF) a lot of we who are called “the Faithful” would be accepting/approving of such a thing. What is especially-much-needed in the Church today is more adult catechesis (as well as better catechesis for all age groups). There is an awful (literally, awful) lot going against the Church in our modern culture today. “The world, the flesh, and the devil” are active—like never before! (We see it even here—in some Comments!) I would highly recommend “National Catholic Register.com” Readers look into higher education in our Catholic Faith. E.g., Classes in Adult Catechesis (e.g., We Want To Be Taught) and Courses and Degrees in Theological Studies (see, e.g., Augustine Institute) are all available online.

Posted by Theresa H on Monday, Aug 18, 2014 1:10 AM (EDT):

.....The Catholic Church has identified from Sacred Scripture what she calls the “Seven Sacraments,” including Marriage (the foundation for the human race, instituted by God “In the beginning….” and between one man and one woman) and Holy Orders (priests and deacons). The Church has also recognized other “particular” vocations: to the Religious Life and the Secular Third Orders. Lastly, there is the Single life—and, I wonder: what’s wrong with this latter “vocation?” Jesus spoke of those who are eunuchs—“for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 19:12) What more do these people, of whom I am one, need!?!

@ Sr. S ... sorry, I did not mean to gloss over your other comments. Let’s look at them I detail.

You claim that Scripture holds that a male-female marriage is the icon for the relationship between Christ and the Church. You cite See Ephesians 5:31-32.

That is a half-truth. There is no mention of same sex relationships and families in that passage. You are making a negative inference ... a rationalization ... which is not a positive prohibition ... and therefore is not sufficient to deny people basic human rights. Jesus Christ had absolutely nothing to say about gay relationships. He had much to say about loving relationality.

I believe St. Paul had a good understanding of human sexuality. He said:

“This I say by way of concession,* however, not as a command. Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire.”

With regard to the Council of Trent ... yes, they met and discussed Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. But that was not all that was discussed and decided. They issued a Decree on the Reformation of Marriage, requiring Church witness to marriage. This abrogated conscience ... which was the doctrinal norm for sixteen hundred years ... first defined by St. Augustine. Again, a half-truth.

With regard to reasoning that, “Every man his own Pope, has led to thousands of Christian denominations, each claiming they have the right interpretation of scripture.”

At a minimum, we need this pope to clear away the obstacles to free and open discussion of the issues facing the church today. Those who attempt to use it as a cautionary tale to remain mired in the categories of Trent are wrong. Pope Francis is trying to reignite the collegial process begun by Vatican II. We can only hope that he will be successful.

Posted by Sister S on Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 11:54 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

You are argued that Courage is insignificant because they are a minority, and used Sense of the Faithful to justify majority opinion. You keep contradicting yourself.

I have yet to come across someone who is actively involved in the church’s sacramental life, and does not assent to church teaching, and is proud of it or uses conscience as an excuse to do so.

@ Kevin Rahe ... please provide some evidence that commitment is affected by orientation ... you allude to a scientific study ... can you cite the source? Or is this your subjective opinion?

You do confuse celibacy with chastity. And heterosexual couples are not coerced ... celibacy it is a choice ... some would say a gift from God.

Check the news ... a few dioceses are discriminating in employment ... and much harm has been done to real people.

Sister S. You do not have a good understanding of Catholic theology. You really should read SENSUS FIDEI: In The Life of the Church ... and consult a Catholic moral theologian. Half-truths are not truth.

And, you do not get to choose who is Catholic.

“You can’t pick and choose: the Church is for everyone, beginning with those I’ve already mentioned, the most marginalized. It is everyone’s Church!” ~ Pope Francis

Do you have something constructive to add to discussion ... or do you simply want to continue verbally abusing those who do not agree with you?

There are many. One is that it lowers the bar regarding the level of commitment between spouses. My wife and I, for instance, committed to raising any and all children we conceive, even though we’ve had no way to predict when, whether or how many such conceptions might occur. While many traditionally-married couples don’t believe they need to make that sort of commitment, at least reality often proves them wrong. A same-sex couple, however, will clearly never need to make such a commitment, as they are in the unique position of being able to ensure absolutely they don’t have a child when they’re not fully ready financially or emotionally. To see the effects of lowered levels of commitment, compare the divorce rates of couples who express a perception of significant control over their fertility (i.e. use artificial contraceptives) to those who make a commitment that does not assume such control.

Accepting homosexual unions also tends to turn ideas about many other things it touches upside-down, including adoption, abstinence and even measures that involve other moral dilemmas like IVF.

Stephen DeVol said,

severe penalty for deviation from the dominant norm (accept celibacy: live life without hope for marriage with another or face condemnation and exclusion from communion and employment

Celibacy is not a “penalty.” In fact, if you look at celibacy as a “penalty” for same-sex-attracted persons who want to live according to Church teaching, I think you’re ignoring what may actually be a larger number of persons whose attractions do not depart from the norm, but who simply don’t find someone with whom to join in an intimate and Christ-centered relationship for a significant portion or perhaps all of their adult life. One could argue that such folks may feel as marginalized when it comes to Church life as those who experience same-sex attractions. If there is some good to come of this matter, I would say that it’s an increased awareness of the need to make everyone who isn’t married with children feel included in the Church.

Also, the Church (and society in general) has always seen marriage much more as something it expects of couples rather than something that is a reward in itself, and the Church would not excuse unjust discrimination against someone (e.g. in employment) because they experience same-sex attractions, or even because they’re involved in a homosexual relationship.

Posted by Sister S on Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 10:26 AM (EDT):

Stephen,

You seem to be pushing Sola Scripture. Why not find a Protestant church of your liking?

Posted by Sister S on Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 10:23 AM (EDT):

Stephen,

Marriage is not a right in the church. It’s a vocation and a calling. If you have to fight for a vocation, you do not have one. Scripture holds that a male-female marriage is the icon for the relationship between Christ and the Church. Not any other marriage.

See Ephesians 5:31-32.

The Council of Trent was a response to the unbiblical/unhistorical doctrine of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. The church is the final interpreter of scripture, since the Gospels came from the church and not the other way around.

Every man his own Pope, has led to thousands of Christian denominations, each claiming they have the right interpretation of scripture.

As for infallibility, Catholics in union with the magisterium also share in the charism of infallibility, but in union, not by themselves.

Lived Experience and sense of the faithful is based on active participation in the life of the Church. Not just formal membership. Only 25% of North Americans go to church on a regular basis, and it’s even lower in Europe.

As for teachings not being taught, this is true. I learnt nothing at the Catholic schools or churches I went to. It was only when I started attending a youth group that I first discovered the actual teachings of the church.

Attacks on the sacramentality of marriage are also going to make it harder to get married in the church. Be careful what you wish for.

Tom in AZ ... sorry no sale Tom ... I never said anything goes ... natural law rationalization, ad homonym attacks and pseudoscience are not sufficient reasons for denying basic human rights ... that simply doesn’t cut it with most Americans.

You may wish to consult CCC on the definitions of sin for some guidance. You will have to provide convincing evidence of harm done to self, others or social stability to justify denying basic human rights to a subset of humaniety.

Sister S ... you focus on the negative protections in SENSUS FIDEI ... because that is what you want to hear ... and you do not even get that right. That’s the problem with doctrinal fundamentalism ... my way or the highway does not win any converts.

The document states that Catholics may “deny assent” to church teaching “if they do not recognize in that teaching the voice of Christ.”

There’s a positive theological significance to the Sensus Fidelium. I focused mainly on the “negative protection” because that’s what was treated in the two paragraphs I was drawn to by your references, but the really interesting question in play in the document as a whole is how the positive treatment of the Sensus Fidei. This significance has been given a lot of lip-service during and since the council, but unfortunately its functioning is not (yet) well-articulated, which has led to it being invoked inappropriately by (for example) anti-Humanae Vitae groups—e.g. arguments like “artificial birth control is morally permissible because a majority of American Catholics use it”. The Magisterium has routinely argued that this is a mistaken invocation of the sensus fidei, but a truly comprehensive critique would require a positive treatment of how the sensus fidei functions theologically. My guess is that the ITC was likely asked to write this document specifically to provide this broader positive vision, and they’ve done a very fine job (see Chapter 3), and as you highlighted this is still a very “open” question in theology. They’ve also done a nice job outlining the criteria to discern the authentic sensus fidelium as distinguished from mere popular opinions (Chapter 4).

Pope Francis likes De Lubac. He said,

“The Church, when it is self-referential, without realizing it thinks that it has its own light; it stops being the “mysterium lunae” and gives rise to that evil which is so grave, that of spiritual worldliness (according to De Lubac, the worst evil into which the Church can fall): that of living to give glory to one another. To simplify, there are two images of the Church: the evangelizing Church that goes out from itself; that of the “Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidenter proclamans” [the Church that devoutly listens to and faithfully proclaims the Word of God ], or the worldly Church that lives in itself, of itself, for itself. This should illuminate the possible changes and reforms to be realized for the salvation of souls.

Posted by Theresa H on Saturday, Aug 16, 2014 11:38 PM (EDT):

That “Pope Francis has asked us to consider civil unions as an option, and I’m sure it will be discussed at the upcoming Synod” is a total misunderstanding of what the Pope said….The “Upcoming Synod” will not support/recommend civil same-sex unions! The Catholic Church will not propose civil unions: rather sacramental marriage between one man and one woman—which is a matter of: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

To be in union with the church, is to participate in the life of the church, the whole nine yards. Nobody gets this perfectly, but, it’s still not based on popular opinion.

Posted by Sister S on Saturday, Aug 16, 2014 10:04 AM (EDT):

Stephen.

Sensus Fidelium needs certain pre-requisites.

“The first and most fundamental disposition is active participation in the life of the Church. Formal membership of the Church is not enough. “

Participation in the life of the Church means constant prayer (cf. 1Thess 5:17), active participation in the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, regular reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, discernment and exercise of gifts and charisms received from the Holy Spirit, and active engagement in the Church’s mission and in her diakonia.

It presumes an acceptance of the Church’s teaching on matters of faith and morals, a willingness to follow the commands of God, and courage both to correct one’s brothers and sisters, and also to accept correction oneself. [#89]

It’s only when a person does these things, can they be taken seriously.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Saturday, Aug 16, 2014 3:08 AM (EDT):

@Stephen DeVol: Your request to know how homosexual civil unions “cause harm” only reinforces the charge, previously made, that your actual moral position is “do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”. The usual modern formulation of the precept, e.g. in Wicca, is “If it harm none, do as you will”. It is, of course, pure Benthamite utilitarianism, not any recognizable school of Christian ethical thought.
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[comment edited]

@ Sister S ... What made marriage sacred during the first sixteen hundred years of Church history was mutual consent. Fidelity , children and social stability were viewed as benefits of consent. The doctrine was first defined by St. Augustine in 356.

In 1563, the Council of Trent abrogated conscience and opened the door for clerical imposition of absurd doctrinal innovations. This counter-reformation period in history culminated in the Vatican I definition of papal infallibility (based upon forged documents and no basis in scripture) in reaction to the loss of Papal States and democratic secularization of governments. Europe was reacting to a long and sad history of clerical imposition. Pope Francis says that “clericalism” is the greatest evil within the Church today.

@ N.D.
RE: “God did not create us and order us to live our lives in relationship as objects of sexual desire/orientation, as that would be in direct violation of God’s own Commandment regarding lust and the sin of adultery”

There is a vast difference between chastity (selfless restraint) and coerced celibacy (to live without hope for marriage with another or face condemnation, exclusion from communion and sacraments and employment). Such an unchristian and outdated Manichean perspective reflects and encourages doctrinal fundamentalism, which, unfortunately, is just as Christ-denying and soul-destroying as biblical fundamentalism. Simply throwing either scripture or Vatican rhetoric at complex and deeply human realities such as sexuality doesn’t cut it with the vast majority of Catholics – gay or straight.

There are few Catholics today who are not aware of the Church’s teaching on contraception, but most did not “receive” the teaching. That means that it did not make sense to them, it did not fit their experience of the use of contraceptives. People did not experience themselves or their spouses as lustful when they used contraceptives, as suggested by some defenders of the teaching. Many, maybe most, saw that sexual activity as loving and unifying and supportive of their relationship. In other words the teaching did not match their lived experience. I find it offensive when people impugn the motives of others just because they do not agree with a teaching of the Church. The use of “receive” in the context of this discussion means that the people comply with the teaching because it makes sense to them, it fits their lived experience and their behavior follows.

I suggest that the Sensus Fidei comes from the Natural Law as it manifests itself in the experience of the faithful. People will respond positively to a teaching which they find fits their own sense of right and wrong and negatively to one that does not. My experience is that the community is made up of a very high percentage of good people trying to live good lives and that it is a fertile ground in which the Spirit can work. For this reason, a teaching that is not received by the faithful cannot be claimed to be “definitive”, etc, but must be opened for discussion to learn the reasons it was not received and that can lead to a teaching that the faithful will receive.

Sister S ... the gay Catholics at Courage are a very very tiny minority ... and I respect their desire to live a celibate life. (I do note that reparative therapy has been debunked by the scientific community). Howver, you fail to acknowledge that the vast majority of gay Catholics desire committed civil union and many want children.

You accuse me of not respecting the minority view. As William Shakespeare said, “Me thinks thou doth protest too much!”

If you are asking me to agree with papal definitions that discriminate and cause harm to humans without evidence or rely upon pseudoscience ... well, if you wish to deny people human rights, then the burden of proof is on you.

@ Kevin Rahe ... I gave you quite a list of sources (to include the Chronicle of Higher Education, over 200 scientific peers and the courts) that have debunked Regenerus’ pseudoscience. And I went into detail about his flawed methodology and lack of academic integrity. The burden of proof is on you. But you might want to stop confusing yourself with fallacies of composition ... we are not talking about pornography.

@Theresa H ... Jesus had absolutely nothing to say about homosexual civil union or family structure ... you are making that up. Get a grip.

“The problem that you do not wish to acknowledge is that most Catholics with homosexual orientation desire a committed relationship and have determined in good conscience that the teaching is not valid.”

The problem is that you limit committed relationships only to genital contact. Catholicism does not. A person can have intimacy without sex, and sex without intimacy.

“Procreative intent and complementarity are twentieth century natural law rationalizations that lack basis in scripture and sound reasoning.”

Scripture is clear about the complementarity of Christian marriage. Total self-giving of the spouses includes fertility.

“This distinction of calling a whole subset of the humanity intrinsically disordered in their very natures is reserved exclusively for those who are gay.”

No. The Catechism calls all lust disordered. See 2351. The church does not call homosexuality a mental disorder. This is a lie. It’s not being used in this sense. But, as a disorder which stems from sin. All sexual acts outside of a male-female marriage are disordered.

“There is ample evidence that people who fall outside the dominant norm are being hurt by exclusion from communion ... which is a violation of the first principle of natural law to do no harm. We do not advocate throwing out natural law reasoning nor Catholic ideals.”

A lot of suffering has been caused by the choices we make and our own sins. The church’s teachings have not been tried and found wanting. They have been found difficult and not tried.

Posted by Theresa H on Friday, Aug 15, 2014 3:57 PM (EDT):

....And when we see refusal “here” and “there” to accept Christ’s Teaching, pray we live and die in the love of Christ and His Church. And do not be shocked when you see rejection of His Word, after all: “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?” (Lk 18:8) He saw it all….and warned us!

Posted by Sister S on Friday, Aug 15, 2014 12:28 PM (EDT):

“Pope Francis says the greatest evilo within the Church is the temptation to to clericalism. He believes that “the phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the laity.””

Yes, there’s a lack of maturity in understanding the interior freedom of the gift. Making a total gift of oneself. The move to destroy sacramental marriage is an example of this lack of maturity and Christian freedom of the gift.

I have a question for you, if things do not go your way at the upcoming Synod, what are you going to do?

Posted by Sister S on Friday, Aug 15, 2014 12:23 PM (EDT):

Stephen,

Liberal Catholics invoke conscience when it suits them, but do not respect the consciences of those who disagree with them. For instance the gay Catholics at Courage do not share your views.

For instance would you be open to celibate gay union or the vocation to friendship?

The vast majority of Catholics are also not Western liberals.

Why don’t you respect the consciences of those who disagree with you?

And yes. Aquinas said, that one must obey one’s conscience when it conflicts with church teaching, but he also said, it would be a sin against conscience and hypocrisy for them to remain in the church, if they think the church is wrong on given issue.

“if a Catholic comes to believe the Church is in error in some essential, officially defined doctrine, it is a mortal sin against conscience, a sin of hypocrisy, for him to remain in the Church and call himself a Catholic, but only a venial sin against knowledge for him to leave the Church in honest but partly culpable error.”

The solutions proposed by the 1984 Synod were not fostered by local churches, because of people who disagree with church teaching, and are not open to even considering them.

And want nothing less than the total destruction of sacramental marriage.

This is becoming clearer as time goes on.

You can settle for less, but do not drag others down with you. It’s our church too.

ND ... most Catholics cannot fathom what is the sin? Please provide some convincing evidence that homosexual civil union causes harm to the individual, others or society.

Your evidence of celibate homosexual relationship is a very small population. The problem that you do not wish to acknowledge is that most Catholics with homosexual orientation desire a committed relationship and have determined in good conscience that the teaching is not valid.

Procreative intent and complementarity are twentieth century natural law rationalizations that lack basis in scripture and sound reasoning. A recent Vatican survey of sexual ethics was distributed worldwide in preparation for the 2014 Synod on the Family. It started by asking if Catholics understand and accept natural law reasoning as applied to marriage and sexual ethics. A “New Religious Movement” is attempting to enshrine a form of natural law reasoning as doctrine without regard for the Sensus Fidelium. There are a number of variations on natural law theory. We believe a Kantian metaphysical approach to natural law reasoning leads to fallacies in moral composition.

The virtue of prudence is lacking when moralists insist on adhering to an ideal, with severe penalty for deviation from the dominant norm (accept celibacy: live life without hope for marriage with another or face condemnation and exclusion from communion and employment that, in concrete situations, damage human lives. Such a metaphysical proposition presents a distorted image of the human person.

This distinction of calling a whole subset of the humanity intrinsically disordered in their very natures is reserved exclusively for those who are gay. And it seems clear to me that when Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) first introduced this language in his 1986 letter to the bishops of the church on the “pastoral” care of those who are gay, he stated that not merely the acts that gay people do, but gay people themselves, are disordered precisely because he wanted to link homosexuality to mental disorder. It’s designed to give aid and comfort to those who choose to inform their fellow human beings who happen to be born gay that they are insane and irrational.

There is ample evidence that people who fall outside the dominant norm are being hurt by exclusion from communion ... which is a violation of the first principle of natural law to do no harm. We do not advocate throwing out natural law reasoning nor Catholic ideals.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Friday, Aug 15, 2014 11:10 AM (EDT):

Stephen DeVol, I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but apparently it’s not debunking the findings reported in this article. If the findings of Regnerus’ new study are wrong, then it shouldn’t be difficult to find people who are unwavering in their support for the Church’s teaching on abstinence before marriage, adultery and abortion, yet disagree with its teachings on same-sex “marriage.” Or on the other side of the same coin, people who wholeheartedly agree with the Church’s position on the latter, but find that pornography and extramarital sex should be considered morally licit. In other words, do you have any evidence at all - either by way of a similar kind of study or even strong anecdotal evidence - that contradicts what this article is saying?

@ ND ... I acknowledge the truth in your statement that we dropped from 75% to less than 20% weekly attendance of baptized Catholics during the past 55 years.

The October Synod of Bishops on the family was released last month at the Vatican. The 85-page document, called an instrumentum laboris or working paper, is based on responses to a questionnaire sent out from the Secretariat of the Synod in October. Drawing up the paper was more difficult than usual because of the large number of responses and the limited time the secretariat had to do its job.

For anyone familiar with the 1980 synod on the family, reading the new instrumentum laboris fosters a feeling of déjà vu.

Many of the same issues are discussed: divorce, cohabitation, irregular marriages, abortion, birth control, poverty, polygamy in Africa, interfaith marriages, annulments, extramarital sex, child upbringing, etc.
.
Many of the same factors are blamed for marriage and family problems: “the mass media; the hedonistic culture; relativism; materialism; individualism; the growing secularism; the prevalence of ideas that lead to an excessive, selfish liberalization of morals; the fragility of interpersonal relationships; a culture which rejects making permanent choices ... “

Granted the return of all these old topics in the new instrumentum laboris, one could conclude that the 1980 synod on the family was a failure, but it is not clear how this new synod will do any better.

Most remarkable, however, was the new instrumentum laboris’ frank acknowledgement that “even when the Church’s teaching about marriage and the family is known, many Christians have difficulty accepting it in its entirety.” Specifically mentioned were “birth control, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, cohabitation, fidelity, premarital sex, in vitro fertilization, etc.”

A definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Based on the experience of the 1980 synod, the impact of the instrumentum laboris could be short-lived. The 1980 document was criticized for leaving out important input from some bishops’ conferences. The report done later by the synod “relator,” appointed by Pope John Paul II, was much more important in guiding the synod than the instrumentum laboris.

Pope Francis says the greatest evilo within the Church is the temptation to to clericalism. He believes that “the phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the laity.”

@ Anthony ... please define the sin. How does homosexual civil union cause harm to the individual, others or society? Please provide some evidence. Or is this simply your subjective opinion.?

Posted by N.D. on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 11:17 PM (EDT):

Stephen, God did not create us and order us to live our lives in relationship as objects of sexual desire/orientation, as that would be in direct violation of God’s own Commandment regarding lust and the sin of adultery; we are, and have always been, from the moment of conception, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers. Love is ordered to the personal and relational inherent Dignity of the human person; a man does not Love his wife in the same manner as he Loves his daughter, or his son, or his mother, or his father, or a friend.

One cannot have a well formed conscience if one’s conscience is not oriented to The Word of God .One cannot be a “faithful” Christian and deny the fact that God’s intention for Sexual Love is consistent with God’s intention for Marriage. The Word of God Is not a matter of opinion.

Posted by Anthony Coticelli on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 3:54 PM (EDT):

For the life of me, I can’t grasp how “Christians” miss the fact that sin is non-negotiable.

@ Russell E. Snow, PhD ... it sounds like you are saying that those who dissent have a secular understanding and those who support orthodoxy have a biblical understanding. Is this your subjective opinion? ... or do you have some evidence you wish to present? I would agree with you that ideology is usually understood to be a pejorative ... and Pope Francis is clear that our faith is not to be reduced to an ideology.

@ Tracy, regarding: The bible clearly states that God states “a man lay with another man, as with a woman, is like vomit to my mouth.” I can not find that quote in the Bible. Please cite your source. From what I can see, Old Testament used sources to support condemnation are quoted out of context (like those used in natural law arguments supporting the institution of slavery). Jesus had nothing to say about homosexual civil union and much to say about loving relationality.

@ Father William Keebler ... I suggest you review the published responses of dioceses and Bishop’s Conferences throughout the world ... and the questions that Pope Francis asks of parishes in the Family Survey ... you might also want to look at recent Pew and CARA surveys ... there are deep concerns among a very large majority of the faithful with how the Church treats Catholics with homosexual orientation.

The lingering question is the vast majority of Catholics who have evaluated Church teaching on Humanae Vitae / homosexual civil union / divorce and have determined in good conscience that the teachings are not valid. To address the disunity will require theological discernment of the “positive” role of the Sensus Fidelium and an antiquated monarchial definition of papal infallibility that has painted the Church into an unreasonable ideological corner.

The classic Catholic example is to declare a Pope who has excommunicated a majority of the Church a heretic ... for he has failed in his duty to maintain the unity of the Catholic Church. However, it would be so much kinder to simply acknowledge that mistakes have been made.

Many Catholics raised in our “pay, pray and obey” Catholic culture are unaware that it is not only our right, but sometimes our duty to speak about matters concerning the good of the church (Code of Canon Law 212.3). Most are surprised to learn the authentic teaching of the church is that whenever there is conflict between one’s conscience and church teaching, one must always obey one’s conscience. St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Anyone upon whom the ecclesiastical authority, in ignorance of the true facts, impose a demand that offends against his clear conscience, should perish in excommunication rather than violate his conscience.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.’

Responsible dissent begins as an act of conscience and continues as part of a committed life in the Church.

Responsible dissent takes place in the context of an abiding assent to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The presumption is in favor of the particular teaching. One should try through prayer and study with an open mind to appreciate the reasons for the present position. If, through this effort, serious and well-founded reasons for holding a contrary opinion persist so that it is impossible in integrity of mind and heart to agree, then one must disagree.

There should be self-criticism about motivation, testing whether dissent is driven by innate hostility or some other hidden agenda, rather than by sincere conviction of the truth.

Since public dissent can detract from certain community values, it must be weighed and decided that the good to be accomplished is in proportion to the possible harm that might result.

The manner of dissent should be respectful of the leadership office in the church, not impugning it although disagreeing in this instance.

Presentation of one’s views should also respect the consciences of others in the community who disagree, and the situation of those who have not investigated or cannot investigate complex issues.

While clear in resistance, the voice of dissent should be inviting a dialogue, rather than competitive in a win-lose way.

Over the years, informed, responsible disagreement has been a gift to the church whereby the criticism born of love has empowered growth.

@ Tom ... you will have to be more specific about criticisms “that don’t hold up.” The specific criticisms from the scientific community are quite specific. The study is criticized for its methodology (not comparing apples to apples), funding, and academic integrity. You have not shared any useful information.

The documents, recently obtained through public-records requests show that the Witherspoon Institute recruited Regenerus to carry out a study that was designed to manipulate public policy. In communicating with donors about the research project, Witherspoon’s president clearly expected results unfavorable to the gay-marriage movement.

@ JTLiuzza ... I believe the recent publication of global Diocesan responses to Vatican Family Survey provide strong indication that Protestants are not unique ... that a vast majority of Catholics also have a conscience and most have serious concerns with the way the Church provides pastoral care to Catholics with homosexual orientation.

Perhaps it is not a coincidental that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently published:

SENSUS FIDEI: IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH

The document states clearly that Catholics my deny assent to Church teaching where they do not hear the voice of Christ.

There’s a positive theological significance to the sensus fidelium. We can focus mainly on the “negative protection” because that’s what interests you, but the really interesting question in play in the document as a whole is the positive treatment of the sensus fidei. This significance has been given a lot of lip-service during and since the council, but unfortunately its functioning is not (yet) well-articulated, which has led to it being invoked inappropriately by (for example) anti-Humanae Vitae groups—e.g. arguments like “artificial birth control is morally permissible because a vast majority of Catholics use it”. The Magisterium has routinely argued that this is a mistaken invocation of the sensus fidei, but a truly comprehensive critique would require a positive treatment of how the sensus fidei functions theologically.

My guess is that the ITC was likely asked to write this document specifically to provide this broader positive vision in preparation for the World Family Synod, and they’ve done a very fine job (see Chapter 3), and this is still a very “open” question in theology. They’ve also done a nice job outlining the criteria to discern the authentic sensus fidelium as distinguished from mere popular opinions (Chapter 4).

As the world’s Catholic bishops prepare for an October global meeting on family life issues, they face several central and disputed questions:

- How much should the experiences and opinions of lay Catholics influence their discussions?

- How does the sensus fidelium serve as an impetus for the development of doctrine and the recognition and reception of the faith of the church?

- What is the role of the sensus fidelium in fundamental moral theology and in particular areas, such as, sexual ethics, human rights, poverty and economics, and war and peace?

- Can controversy and conflict in the church and society surface disputed theological questions and foster change in the sensus fidelilum?

@ mrscracker ... yes, that is our democratic political structure ... the free exchange of ideas. The problem resides within “infallible” polemic definitions.

Every human statement of truth, with its human limitations, can easily turn into error. There is always a danger that a polemically aligned proposition will strike, not only the error, but also the truth contained in it. If a Protestant, for instance, states quite un-polemically that the just man lives by faith, the shadow of error that accompanies the proposition does not appear. But if he polemically makes the same statement in reply to the error of a legalistic Catholic who exaggerates the importance of good works, there is a danger that the shadow of error may obscure the truth of his statement by the unexpressed implication that the just man lives by faith (without doing any good works). The converse also holds true. If a Catholic states un-polemically that the just man does works of charity, the shadow of error accompanying the proposition does not appear. But if he states polemically, in reply to the error of a quietist Protestant who attaches too much importance on faith, that the just man does works of charity, there is a danger that the shadow of error will obscure the truth of his statement by the unexpressed implication that the just man does works of charity (and does not live by faith).

This classic example of Catholic-Protestant argument shows that a polemical statement of truth, never mind from which side it comes, runs the risk of being understood as a denial of an error. It thus necessarily ignores the kernel of truth contained in the error. In short, because a half-truth is also a half-error, the two parties fail to understand each other. Each clings to his truth and sees the other’s error. Though the truth of each includes the truth of the other, each excludes the other because of its lack of truth. This sort of thing has constantly recurred throughout Church history.

In every instance it should be the task of theology and political scientists to detect the truth in the other party’s errors and the possible error in one’s own truth. Thus the abandoning of unintended error would lead to a meeting of the minds in intended truth. Hence, St. Francis said, seek to understand before trying to be understood.

Posted by JudyG on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 12:11 PM (EDT):

this is getting disgusting—especially the liberals that contribute their defense of homosexuals raising children—and throwing in the illegals to boot
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Posted by Sister S on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 12:06 PM (EDT):

A vocation to chaste friendship is being explored in the church. Friendship as a form of love.

Kevin ... the results of the Regenerus study are a far cry from confirming harm done. The study was not comparing apples to apples ... the peer-review process was biased ... and credible peers and institutions within the scientific community and the courts have pointed out the deep flaws within the Regenerus study quite well. At best, the study can lead one to reasonably conclude that we should be promoting stable families irrespective of sexual orientation. But as I said, I for one don’t like the idea of using group outcomes data to determine basic human rights.

You can cry foul all you wish and express your subjective opinion… but if you want anyone to take seriously the claim that harm is done to assert or deny human rights, you will have to show better and converging evidence. And please, no Ad Homonym attacks.

It must be reinstated these days that governments cannot Impose monoculturalism or monoreligious identities. Government nowadays has to do with regulating pluralism and granting freedom. It is up to us as Catholics to present a plausible and attractive type of Catholicism and social practices based on it.

Among the great thinkers who have inspired me is Fr. Bernard Lonergan ... particularly his theories on knowledge and insight. While never denying the objectivity of truth, Lonergan claimed that religious people have “an exaggerated view of the objectivity of truth” and especially their capacity to understand it. Lonergan moved from searching for and arguing about airy abstractions to changing the seer himself or herself ... to understand the connection between the seer and the seen.

Vatican II was meant to bring the Church into the modern world. Our Catholic criterion is the acknowledgement that ideas have a reality to them as well, and that this reality must be deeply personal or it runs the risk of becoming an ideology. By placing the human person at the center of analysis, rather than abstract laws or ideals or subjective interpretations of Sacred Scripture, we keep ourselves honest. We applaud Pope Francis for asking some fundamental questions:

- How do you treat Catholics with homosexual orientation in your parish?

Mark, the Church has rotted from within over the past 55 years as many of Her members have accepted the contraceptive mentality and materialism. They continue to support a government who wants to control their lives and replace God. This government openly supports a wide range of intrinsic evils and feigns opposition to multiple issues of prudential judgment. Their followers use these issues to justify their continued support in spite of the intrinsic evils being perpetrated on our society. There is a perfect example of this in the comments to your article. This acceptance of evil did not happen overnight. We dropped from 75% to less than 20% weekly attendance of baptized Catholics during the past 55 years.

So how did we get here? How are so many ignoring the eternal ramifications of their actions? I believe it started from the pulpit. Very few priests today provide homilies that even touch on the last things, the 2nd most predominant topic preached by Jesus in the Gospels. When the priests stopped preaching like Jesus, the sheep strayed away. And the unfaithful sheep that remain are fooling themselves with the talking points of the enemy. The Word of God says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!”

Posted by Sister S on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 11:53 AM (EDT):

N.D,

I am not the person who brought up civil unions here, but what about the rite of Christian friendship where two people can enter into a celibate union.? I do agree it takes a mature understanding of vocation for this. In this case the vocation to spiritual friendship?

Stuart Kenny,

I fully support church teachings on the death penalty and war.

There are Catholics who want a complete change in sacramental marriage at the upcoming Synod. I am glad you do not share these views.

I do think it’s possible for two celibate homosexuals to enter into contracts over property or healthcare, just as it’s possible for two siblings or two friends.

I am not sure if this what the church is looking into here.

The purpose of a vocation is to make a complete gift of oneself. This is done through sacramental marriage, and also through religious life or the priesthood.

Is it possible to explore other ways to make a complete gift of self, apart from marriage and religious life, in the church?

In whole Catholics need a deeper understanding of vocation to begin with.

And much more needs to be done to foster vocation in the church.

Posted by JTLiuzza on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 11:31 AM (EDT):

Sound, orthodox catechesis collapsed after the council. From the pulpit and in Catholic schools we got (and still get) pablum. If the Church is not going to provide instruction then the depraved culture will.

For protestants they are guided not by church authority and teaching but by their own consciences so they can be convinced of anything (as we see in their “churches”)

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 10:30 AM (EDT):

Stephen DeVol,
I also looked at the media list you presented. It’s the same idea as presenting links to conservative publications/media, but in reverse. We all tend to give more consideration to media that will “resonate with our moral preferences.” You see that in comment boxes repeatedly.

Posted by N.D. on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 8:54 AM (EDT):

Could someone please get this message to our Holy Father, Benedict:

Dear Holy Father Benedict,

You have read Our Lady’s Message given at Fatima. If there is nothing that precludes you from fulfilling Our Lady’s request, could you, as well as those Bishops who are in communion with Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, abide by Our Lady’s wishes, and do the Consecration as intended, for the sake of Christ, His Church, all who will come to believe, and all those prodigal sons and daughters, who, hopefully, will return to The Fold? Authentic Love does not divide, it multiplies, just as in the parable of The Loaves and Fishes.

Posted by N.D. on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 8:03 AM (EDT):

“Pope Francis has asked us to consider civil unions, and I am sure it will be discussed at the upcoming Synod.”

Sister S, with all due respect, the question is, why would a Pope ask us to consider civil unions, when our call to Holiness has always been a call to be chaste in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds?

Posted by Joseph Metrick on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 7:34 AM (EDT):

Homosexual acts are intrinsically evil, everything after it follows, including an imaginary “marriage”.

Posted by Joseph Metrick on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 7:32 AM (EDT):

An awful lot of “christians” that have no grasp of what Christianity is or what it teaches or why. but when church leadership is more concerned about people’s feeling’s instead of the truth this is what happens. I call the Catholic church the Protestant Catholic Church.

Posted by robert waligora on Thursday, Aug 14, 2014 3:45 AM (EDT):

to see the amount of posts throughout the years, catholics supporting birth control, abortion, sodomy, those voting for the demon-crat party…a anti God,anti-baby..party…and the list goes on….in truth much of Christianity and many of the catholic in the pews are nothing but tools of satan and his agenda of eternal damnation, coating everything that is sinful as something of love and compassion! And the weak Shepherds are the ones clearly responsible for letting this trash infest the Church, in refusing to clearly condemn sin for what it is..Eternal separation from God!...

Posted by john on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:45 PM (EDT):

I don’t understand why the author chose marriage equality as the standard around which other issues are viewed. Why not make opinions about masturbation or contraception the central issues and the remaining issues ancillary? Why were these issues chosen and not many others? Is it possible, for instance, that Christians who support marriage equality are more likely to be in agreement with church teaching on the death penalty and war? It is also worth noting that the author’s prior “study” was roundly rejected not only by the courts and prominent members of his field but by his very own colleagues in the department at his very own school. There seems to be no point to this “study” other than to say there is some correlation between opinions on one subject and opinions on others. And?
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Posted by Stuart Kenny on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 10:49 PM (EDT):

“One cannot be Christian while denying the fact that from the moment of conception, every son or daughter of a human person, has been created in The Image and Likeness of God, equal in Dignity, while being complementary as a male or female.”

And you can’t be a Christian and deny the human dignity of every person after they are born, either. You can’t be a Christian and support policies which would cause the deaths of child refugees. You can’t support the death penalty if there are other ways to protect society—a person does not lose the basic, God-given right to life even if he or she commits a terrible crime. You can’t support the killing of both unborn and born children in Gaza and Iraq. You can’t support policies which leave climate change unaddressed, leaving unborn and born children to die from famine and extreme weather.

Even same-sex relationships do not destroy the God-given right to life and the freedom to choose on the basis of an informed conscience.

Posted by N.D. on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 7:48 PM (EDT):

One cannot be Christian while denying the fact that from the moment of conception, every son or daughter of a human person, has been created in The Image and Likeness of God, equal in Dignity, while being complementary as a male or female.

To deny the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the human person, is to deny God.

Posted by Sister S on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 7:21 PM (EDT):

Stuart Kenny,

To answer your question.

Catholics who support gay marriage are also increasingly pressing for changes to sacramental marriage, because it’s ideals are too high for them to live by. Gay marriage is shaping how they see sacramental marriage.

Nobody is going to force a church to marry someone, but the attacks on church run institutions to abide by their consciences are going to increase.

Options include pulling out of civil marriage, altogether, so Catholics no longer get a two- in one marriage, but will have to get them done separately, like in some countries.

Another option is to pass the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act pending in congress. This would ensure religious exemptions.

Posted by Carol on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 7:17 PM (EDT):

Well, you should poll Catholic priests and religious- many of whom see nothing wrong with same-sex attraction and marriage. Why should the laity be any more faithful to the church’s teachings?

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 7:14 PM (EDT):

Same-sex “marriage” proponents often point out that it’s not same-sex-attracted people who’ve damaged the sanctity of marriage, but opposite-sex couples. Since the beginning of the debate I’ve always affirmed that argument, and this article does the same. Acceptance of same-sex “marriage” does depend heavily on the acceptance of that damage, however, which the results of this study seem to confirm. Even government recognition of same-sex “marriage” doesn’t do additional damage to traditional marriage. It does, however, tend to cement acceptance of the damage that’s already been done into law.

Stuart Kenny said,

Was the distinction between CIVIL and SACRAMENTAL marriage made clear in the questionnaire?

That marriage happens to be recognized by the government is really ancillary from either a religious or even purely anthropological or cultural point of view. Even in our own relatively young country it’s only been in the last century or so that the federal government began recognizing marriage and states started issuing marriage licenses.

Stephen DeVol, you seem to be taking issue with a different Regnerus study much more than the one referenced by this article.

Posted by Tracy Langdon on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 7:05 PM (EDT):

I am perplexed by the amount of Christians that accept homosexuality as being a valid choice or even natural. The bible clearly states that God states “a man lay with another man, as with a woman, is like vomit to my mouth.” Unless one feels that vomit is a good thing I think this is pretty clear. It also stated that they were to be stoned.
God does want us to love the sinner, but hate the sin. We are not to condone homosexuality or premarital sex, or adultery, or viewing pornography (which is a form of adultery).
All I can say is this country and a good share of the world are headed down a road of immorality that will lead to the fall of society.
I guess I am in the minority. But I will stick to what I know is right.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 6:23 PM (EDT):

@Stephen DeVol: I’ve actually been following most of the criticisms of the Regnerus study; few of them hold up to any scrutiny. Most of those so-called authorities YOU cite fell for Bellesiles’ Arming America, because it told them what they wanted to hear, so their biases and ignorance are a known quantity.
-
Got anything from a different source? Because all the criticisms you’ve cited so far amount to calling Regnerus “bourgeois pseudoscience”, nothing more.
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Posted by JD on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 6:14 PM (EDT):

Would someone please tell me why the sacrament of marriage should be conferred upon two men engaging in unsanitary acts that result in damaging a very delicate area of one’s anantomy? This whole thing is like the abortion issue. People look at it from a 40,000 ft altitude and it seems OK. But, when you look at it up close and actually stop and think about the physical reality, you see it for what it actually is and become sickened.

By the way, all those sources sited for refuting the gay parenting study are very liberal institutions for which no amount of evidence would ever be enough to convince them same sex relations and children do not belong together.

The safest place for a child, by far, is with married biological parents. It shouldn’t take a PH.D in sociology to figure that out.

Posted by DAVE on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 5:55 PM (EDT):

Stephen DeVol

Your list of “critiques” are from all left-ideological, left-leaning, or at least culturally (which is depraved left on the whole and cannot stand the light of truth) conforming/reflecting organizations. No wonder it seems overwhelming and EWTN seems in your opinion to be blocking critique. If any thing they are blocking attacks and rants.

And saying that same=sex etc “marriage” relationships, etc are basic human rights, no. They are creations of the ‘human lefts’—as in, those who left morality, truth, natural law and faith in the dust for self-indulgent cravings…..

Regenrus doesn’t stand alone, but he is certainly not standing with the crowd of lemmings heading to their own destruction.

It is far past time for those who are Christians to separate themselves from those who encourage and or continually indulge in sexual sin of any kind. People do go to hell because of a preference for sexual sin (and others of course) rather than the forgiveness and new life that only the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus offers.

This was written in 1972. It is now forming the basis for Anscombe Societies that are springing up in many of the most elite campuses. It encourages what she called “traditional morality”. I found it very encouraging. America has gone over to the dark side under our current president and the Democratic party. There is no shadow in Christian teaching on sexual morality. If people don’t follow it they don’t follow it because they don’t want to. God watches. Every action; every chosen thought counts. Read Anscombe’s essay.

Posted by Stuart Kenny on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 4:54 PM (EDT):

I call myself a Christian because I am in a relationship with Jesus which I celebrate weekly at Mass.

I support individual rights in a democracy. I am not here to judge those outside the Church; I cannot decide for a free adult how to define “CIVIL marriage.” If CIVIL marriage is available to couples who use contraception, to those who enter the marriage believing it can be dissolved, or who are civilly divorced, I don’t see why CIVIL marriage shouldn’t be available to same-sex couples in a free society. Pope Francis has asked us to consider civil unions as an option, and I’m sure it will be discussed at the upcoming Synod.

SACRAMENTAL marriage will always be between a man and a woman, where every sexual act is open to procreation, and which there is no possibility of dissolving the union. As a Christian and a Catholic, I absolutely believe in that definition of SACRAMENTAL marriage and do not in any way dissent from that definition.

It is fairly clear that the divide among all Christians is whether or not they have a biblical understanding or a secular understanding of reality. Most people educated during the past 50 years in the US generally have a worldview shaped by the presuppositions of radical secularism. This was has been true of many biblical scholars. The radical secularists claim privileged ground from which to judge all other worldviews. As in the case with all modern ideologies claiming to be scientific, their fundamental principles and philosophical presuppositions are not open to free and open minded inquiry.

It is interesting to note that this blog has blocked all links to credible criticism of this questionable study. Shame on EWTN!

To feel we need to refute unlikeable data buys into a dangerous premise. The impulse to reject findings we don’t agree with is tacitly conceding that this kind of data can legislate rights, so to make sure we maintain the ones we want, it’s best to hide the findings that might undercut them. That admission is deeply problematic – for science because it leads us down a road of stifling findings that don’t resonate with our moral preferences, and for politics because it says our nation’s values on who should be able to have children are not founded in basic rights, but instead subject to the results of a single social science study. Neither is a road we should feel comfortable treading on.

Regnerus’ study had major flaws, and that fact should be known. But his findings shouldn’t have mattered that much, anyway. I for one don’t like the idea of using group outcomes data to determine basic rights. I don’t need to reject his paper to affirm that I support same-sex couples having children, and neither should you.

Ahh, Ptomaine Tommie’s Catholic Cafeteria is wide open for business. The “daily special” appears to be “free-will” poured over rotten deviled eggs!

Posted by Edward M Wharton on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 12:37 PM (EDT):

The dilemma is easily solved. If you subscribe to primacy of reason, by default you are accepting God (as explained in the Catholic Cathechism)and the defined moral parameters that accompanies this choice; if you subscribe to primacy of will (anything is acceptable as long as you will it: undefined moral parameters) you are by default rejecting God. Any questions?

Posted by Dr. Mark on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 12:34 PM (EDT):

Members of the “church of what’s happenin’ now”. They will be spit out like lukewarm water.

Posted by Bob on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 12:32 PM (EDT):

Duuuuu!!! What is the point beyond the painfully obvious one? This is to normalize in some way the barbarians who indulge in every form of perversion.

Articles like this make me wonder about Christians in America.

Posted by john bremsteller on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 12:00 PM (EDT):

the rape of the middle east is a bigger moral issue than same-sex unions

“Church going Christians” who support gay unions? The truth is these are church going NON- Christians for Christians homosexual acts are always and everywhere intrinsically evil mortal sin!

Posted by Theresa H on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:40 AM (EDT):

Thanks in great part to “mass-media” today, we have catapulted ourselves onto a road that leads to the utter destruction of our souls….

No doubt, mass-media isn’t, per se, “bad;” it’s HOW we use it—and that IS the problem! I’ve lived long enough to see an incredible amount of change in our culture—in what we see as most important….

“When the Son of Man comes, do you think He will find faith on the earth?”

Posted by Father William Keebler on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:36 AM (EDT):

What I can’t figure out is what the interest is in church participation among those who support views opposed to Christian faith and morals. The article was fine but I wished it included percentages of church goers who support church doctrine versus those who don’t.

Posted by Michelle on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:35 AM (EDT):

Seems a no-brainer to me. Christianity hands down a body of belief, not scattered, random rules. The degree of an individual’s acceptance of Christ as head of the Church affects his professed beliefs and his unity with that Church. If I’m “meh” about the Church, I’m not going to agree with her when it’s hard.

Posted by Timmy on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:16 AM (EDT):

I may have missed it, having scanned the article a couple of times. Does Dr. Regnerus indicate which numbers are larger - those Christians that attend services three or more times a month and are pro homosexual marriage versus those Christians who attend services three or more times a month that are against homosexual marriage? This is of great importance to any conclusion to be drawn from the other percentages in the study. That is, what do the percentages actually mean to the Christian community (and otherwise)?

Posted by Stuart Kenny on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 11:02 AM (EDT):

1. A young, Mass-attending man and woman who plan to use artificial contraception and who believe there are circumstances in which their marriage could be dissolved.

2. A same-sex couple.

These two couples are the same in this way: Neither can be married in the Catholic Church.

Why don’t more Catholics show up to protest the church weddings of couples who use contraception and keep the option of divorce open?

NO ONE is supporting a change to the understanding of SACRAMENTAL marriage—not even the Episcopalians (they bless but do not marry same-sex couples). If we can support CIVIL marriage for the first couple, why not CIVIL marriage for the second?

Was the distinction between CIVIL and SACRAMENTAL marriage made clear in the questionnaire?

Posted by Martin Soy on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2014 10:34 AM (EDT):

I am perplexed as to what the supporters of “gay marriage” believe that allows them to consider themselves Christians. Apparently the 6th commandment is not valid in their belief system.

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